Research: Teaching Economic Policy Institutions

Research summary

• June 2020 to September 2021

This project explores how the role, power and purpose of economic policy institutions is taught in higher education - and provides teaching resources to help economics and political science students understand organisations such as the Treasury and Bank of England.

A failure to appreciate the role of such policymakers in shaping economic life means important influences upon how the capitalist economy operates in countries such as the UK remain marginal to economic analysis.

This is especially problematic given events in the UK. For example, the Treasury and Bank of England have developed extraordinary policy initiatives in order to rescue and partially reform the financial system in the wake of the 2007/8 crisis and ostensibly rebalance the economy. But such processes have been marginal to teaching in economics and political science.

In turn, this makes the nature of recent changes almost invisible in public debates about the economy, which tend to be led by economists trained in mainstream educational programmes but with experts in public policy processes absent.

With policymaking institutions marginalised, economics students cannot fully appreciate how the economy actually functions and political science students overlook important relationships between political and economic power.

Our new teaching resources provide introductory material on the Treasury and the Bank of England, focusing on their history, organisation, personnel, power, relationships and ideological agendas. A range of essays written by leading experts and practitioners supplements the core material.

Stakeholder sessions were held with academic experts and policy practitioners (including current and former officials of the Treasury and the Bank of England) to help develop the new resources.